Edward, grasping at some memory of love, refused to divorce Lillie despite her pleas, and without the consent of both parties the British courts refused to grant the divorce. Because American courts were more flexible, Lillie became an American citizen to rid herself of her humiliating husband. Having lost his wife to a prince and a subsequent dazzling career, Edward sank into an irretrievable pit of alcoholism and depression. Lillie, though thrilled to be freed of him, faithfully sent him money four times a year until the day he died.
The Penalties of Defiance
While some husbands leaped for joy as their monarchs bedded their wives, and others suffered dutifully, a few had the backbone to stand up to such adulterous intrusions. One of the earliest records of such defiance occurred during the reign of England’s King John of Magna Carta fame (1167–1216). One Eustace de Vesci, an aristocrat, was hated by King John “because he had placed a common woman instead of his wife in the royal bed.”18
Thirteenth-century records such as this often offer us more questions than answers. Let us, however, imagine King John rutting joyously in the inutterable darkness of a feudal four-poster with what he presumes is a beautiful virtuous noblewoman. And then, as the first cold fingers of dawn illumine the person in his bed, he finds to his chagrin a scullery maid or washerwoman.
In the 1520s, King François I went to a lady’s bedchamber to find her husband waiting next to the bed, guarding his wife’s honor with a sword. In a royal rage, the king informed the husband that if he harmed his wife he would lose his head. The king then kicked the unfortunate man out of the room and climbed into bed with his wife.
Henri IV of France suffered resistance from not one, but two of his mistresses’ stubborn husbands. When Gabrielle d’Estrées gave him a son, Henri was afraid that her aged husband Nicolas d’Amerval could claim paternity and remove the boy from his mother. Henri decided to press for a divorce. One of the few reasons the Catholic Church would grant a divorce was in the case of the husband’s impotence.
Poor d’Amerval found himself in a highly unenviable position. Admitting impotence—unpleasant for a man even in our own day—was almost a fate worse than death in the sixteenth century. On the other hand, angering the king could jeopardize his property and even his life if Henri wanted to have this inconvenient little man assassinated. D’Amerval testified, “To obey the King and in fear of my life, I am about to consent to the dissolution of my marriage with the Dame d’Estrées…. I declare and protest before God that if the dissolution be ordered and brought to pass, it will be done by force, against my will, and only out of respect for the King, seeing that the assertion, confession, and declaration that I am impotent and incapable is untrue.”19 Indeed, d’Amerval had sired no less than fourteen children with his first wife.
A few days into the proceeding, d’Amerval suddenly reversed his position and admitted he was indeed impotent. The reason behind his reversal is not known. Henri was not known to threaten but may have bribed. D’Amerval’s servants were called as additional witnesses and testified that his sheets were never stained. The divorce was granted.
After Gabrielle’s death in 1599, and his subsequent unhappy marriage to Marie de Medici the following year, Henri had an even tougher time with a cuckolded husband when he fell in love with the beautiful Charlotte de Montmorency in 1609. The ardor of the ever-romantic monarch was not dampened by his fifty-four years, nor by the difference in ages; the object of his desires was fourteen and had recently stopped playing with dolls. Charlotte was engaged to a virile and handsome young buck. The king broke the engagement and instructed her to marry the un-threatening prince de Condé, a weak and skinny soul thought to be a homosexual.
In May Charlotte celebrated her fifteenth birthday and was married to the prince de Condé in a glittering ceremony. The king was conspicuous by his absence but lavished princely gifts on the new bride. Unfortunately for Henri, the insignificant little groom was not as pliable as he had believed. The prince’s pride was pricked by the sharp and public pain of being a royal cuckold. A month after the wedding, he requested the king’s permission to retire with his wife to his estates. The answer was a firm no.
Enraged, Condé confronted the king and called him a tyrant. Henri threatened to stop the prince’s pension if he left court without permission. Uncowed, the prince took his wife and fled. Henri disguised himself as a hunter—complete with a patch over one eye—and spied out the prince’s estate hoping for a glimpse of his beloved. This romantic trick of disguise had been the stuff of legends in his younger years—crossing enemy lines to visit his mistress Gabrielle for a few precious hours—but was now seen as pitiful in an old roué. Charlotte, at any rate, did not appreciate it. While walking in the gardens she saw the king in his hunter’s rags and began to scream at the top of her lungs until he ran away. Upon hearing of the king’s visit, Condé realized he must take Charlotte out of France.
Soon thereafter, Henri received the news that the prince had fled with Charlotte to the safety of the Netherlands. Henri’s adviser the duc de Sully reported, “When I came to the Louvre I found the King in the Queen’s chamber, walking back and forth, with his head reclined and his hands folded behind his back.” The king said, “Well, our man is gone and has carried all with him.” He added, “I am lost.”20 Henri kept to his rooms for several days after this, locked in deep depression, seeing no one.
Meanwhile, Spain’s Philip III, continuing his kingdom’s tradition of stirring up trouble with France, assured the prince de Condé of Spain’s support in his just struggle against the lascivious king. Philip offered Condé a home in Spain or, if he wished, in the sections of Italy under Spanish domination. Meanwhile, the pope—appealed to by Henri, Philip of Spain, and the prince de Condé, and unwilling to anger either Spain or France—attempted to play the peacemaker. For several months, European politics were roiled by Henri’s infatuation with a fifteen-year-old girl and the stubborn refusal of her husband to deliver her up to his king.
As the weeks grew into months Henri’s eagerness to reclaim Charlotte became an obsession. He wrote to his agent in Brussels, “I am so tortured by my anguish that I am only skin and bone. Everything bothers me; I avoid company, and if, in order to do justice to other people, I do let myself be drawn into some gathering, instead of cheering me, it only succeeds in deadening me.”21
The envoy from the court of Spain wrote to his master, “I have been told that the King of France would give the Dauphin and all his other sons for the Princess de Condé which leads me to believe that he will risk everything for his love. His health is altered; he has lost sleep and some people are beginning to believe that he is starting to go mad. He who has so much loved society now remains alone for hours at a time, walking up and down in his melancholy.”22
In March came an about-face. Charlotte’s father sued the prince de Condé for a divorce from his daughter. Her husband agreed to the divorce, and Charlotte decided to return to France and become the king’s mistress. Condé had grown weary of fighting the king of France, and perhaps Charlotte preferred a glittering life at court to a dull exile. But Henri’s enemies were unwilling to permit such a prize as Charlotte to return to France. They refused her permission to travel. Henri declared war on them and raised an army.